


do us proud

by anneblythes



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Canon Era, Cute, Denial of Feelings, Encouragement, F/M, Temporarily Unrequited Love, gilbert blythe being a kind boy, of gilbert to anne yanno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 01:45:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14727627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneblythes/pseuds/anneblythes
Summary: before anne's elocution recital at the white sands hotel, gilbert tries to encourage her, but she won't let herself accept it yet.





	do us proud

“A professional elocutionist,” said Diana, letting fat Billy Andrews help her from the buggy. “Anne, could you remind me what that is, again?”

  
“It’s formal speaking,” said Jane Andrews, who followed, rejecting her brother’s arm.

  
Anne and Diana exchanged a glance. Jane never meant to have poor manners, and she was never unkind. She simply didn’t care for the conventions other people spoke by, especially when she had some fact to share. “Oration,” Jane continued, leading the way down the sandy path to the White Sands Hotel. “They say this one is very fine at it. And she comes from Montreal. Have you girls ever been there? I haven’t.”

  
“Me neither,” said Anne, almost snappily. She had only ever lived in small towns, like Avonlea, and so, in her imagination, every city girl was as glamorous as a storybook heroine. A city girl could hardly open her mouth without becoming a professional elocutionist. Anne Shirley, the country bumpkin, was set to recite on the same stage as this cosmopolitan, and she was nervous. The White Sands people all lived in cities for the winter. Maybe this was the first time they had heard of Avonlea, P.E.I., and if an Avonlea girl was drab and boring next to a Montreal elocutionist- well, that would just reinforce anything they might assume.

  
There was no need to snap, though. Jane Andrews was a friend, if a clueless one. She didn’t think about other people’s feelings, and how much they felt them. It was something she forgot to do, rather than a conscious choice to hurt you. Anne took a breath and smiled.

  
“I’d like to go, someday. And to Paris, if I could. The city of- well, the city of everything. Of light, isn’t it?”

  
“I thought that was Carmody,” said Billy Andrews. “That’s what folks were calling it after Mr. Lionel Beam’s barn fire, anyway.”

  
“They say she had an audience with a Duke,” said Jane.

  
The girls let Billy hold the door for them, and follow them into the hotel blushing and stuttering.

  
The White Sands Hotel was as nice as anywhere in America, but just a little bit cheaper. That was why so many of the White Sands summer people were from Boston, or other places up and down the east coast of the great and confusing country. The rest were Canadians, still with money, but Canadians, and therefore not as frightening to Anne. The lobby was full of these American and Canadian summer people, as well as concertgoers from around P.E. Isle. There was a pleasant buzz of conversation, and the perfumes of flower bouquets and rich women mixed into a singular, sweet smell of money and refinement. The floors- well! Even Marilla couldn’t polish Green Gables so well, so you could see people’s feet reflected quite like a mirror. Anne had dreamed of marble halls, but never thought she might visit one. The whole place was perfect.

  
“Is this where the ‘best people’ stay?” Diana asked Anne, laughing. This was a phrase someone had used in a novel, and the girls were taken with it. The ‘best people’ in the story’s city were far above anyone they knew in Avonlea.

  
“I think so-“ Anne began to say, but she was interrupted.

  
There was Gilbert Blythe, one of the very ‘worst people’, coming towards the group. He had driven over with Josie Pye, who, of course, had been talking about it all week.

  
And why wouldn’t she, Anne thought. He looked so handsome tonight. She had the strangest urge to touch the spot in front of his ear where his hair ran into stubble, then smoothness. To take Gilbert Blythe’s arm as he helped you out of his father’s buggy would feel very safe; to hold it as you walked through the crowded lobby would be divine. Why was he there with Josie Pye? Why-

  
“Good evening,” said Gilbert, and she remembered that she hated him. A girl like Josie (or even Diana- Anne noticed her smile opening with a new light) would think his deep voice was kind, and want it to be speaking just to her. But Gilbert Blythe was her enemy, and he was smiling and acting sweet because he looked forward to laughing at her.

  
“Hello, Gilbert,” said Jane Andrews.

  
“Hello, Gilbert,” said Diana. “Do you know where Anne should go? Since she’s performing tonight, you know.”

  
Diana wouldn’t let the idea go that Anne and Gilbert should be friends, or something beyond that. She was always telling Anne that someone else in the school loved Blake’s poems, for example, and that she should ask him to borrow an edition- and that person would always turn out to be Gilbert. Or they would be walking on some Avonlea path, and Gilbert would be there, and he’d be happy to talk to the girls. But Anne would hardly answer him.

  
“I don’t know,” said Gilbert, “But there’s lemonade and cookies on that table. We could go have some, for Anne’s strength.”

  
“We ate at home,” Anne said coldly.

  
“And I’ve had quite enough,” said Diana, “But Anne, it’s true. A little bit of sugar could let you speed ahead of that Montreal woman. You two go; we’ll stay right here.”

  
Diana practically pushed Anne towards Gilbert, and once she was next to him, and he was walking to the snack table, it would have been rude to break away. She was stuck now. Unless some angel decided to show her where the dressing room was, she’d have to have a whole conversation with beautiful, infuriating Gilbert Blythe.

  
“I thought you were here with Josie,” Anne said, taking a lemon cookie. If she was chewing, she wouldn’t have to talk as much.

  
“She went to fix her hair,” said Gilbert, taking one of the same.

  
He’d obviously brought up hair to laugh to himself at hers. She knew she had red hair. Yesterday, while brushing it, she’d thought it looked more auburn than usual. If he was bringing hair up, though, that must have been an illusion. It was carrot-red still, and no hotel American would be able to take his eyes off her. Her head was just like a beacon.

  
Gilbert was thinking more of how pretty she was. He had brought up hair because he didn’t think she had to fix hers at all. The ladies in the dressing-room would probably fuss over it, but it was lovely even rumpled from her drive. It looked so soft.

  
“I see,” said Anne.

  
She ate a chocolate cookie and drank a glass of lemonade just to not look at Gilbert. He kept standing there, not going away. She didn’t like that she really did want him to stay, and talk to her. He kept trying, and she had to squash it, but it was good that he kept on anyway.

  
“Josie was telling me about your recitation tonight. She says you’ve been working on it a long time.”

  
“Marilla always says that good work takes time and effort,” Anne said.

  
“You don’t seem worried, then.”

  
“Why would I be worried? It isn’t a competition.” She took a date square.

  
“Oh, I know. But I’ve heard there’s a professional from Montreal here tonight. And it’s silly, but I was thinking of how nervous I get around city people. Some are nice, but they’re so different from anyone we know. We don’t have the same frame of reference, I suppose, as someone from a city… They’re living in a different way. It’s so easy to feel small, next to them.”

  
If anyone else had articulated just what Anne was worried about, and given her such a caring look, she would have immediately called them a kindred spirit. She swallowed and cleared her throat.

  
“I suppose so.”

  
He wouldn’t stop looking at her, and he did have gorgeous eyes, so dark and warm. How Gilbert Blythe, so big and sure of everything, could ever feel small, she didn’t know. Suddenly she felt very understood, and a corner of her mind considered that maybe Gilbert wasn’t laughing at her. Maybe his eyes were kind, and she could let him in a little. Not too much, not now. Just enough to drive with him, maybe… to let him carry her books down Lovers’ Lane…

  
At that moment, a woman in pink appeared at Anne’s arm and asked why she hadn’t come to the dressing-room at once, it was all right to get encouragement from friends before the show but she had gone too long… And to please follow her to the room at once, where everyone was getting ready. She could say goodbye to her young man and then be off at once.

  
He isn’t my young man, Anne wanted to say, but before she could, Gilbert touched her arm gently.

  
“Do us proud, Anne,” he said, and there wasn’t a bit of laughing in it.

*

“Do us proud, Anne,” she repeated to herself in a deep, mocking voice. The performers were sitting on a platform in the big concert hall, and she hadn’t thought anyone could hear her over the general chatter and the hum of the electric lights. But the girl next to her, who had been talking at length about the country bumpkins one saw at this sort of thing, gave her an odd look.

  
Anne smiled at her, then looked out at the crowd. It took her a moment to find her friends, but there were Diana and Jane, waving at her. A few rows back was Josie Pye, with a complicated hairstyle, looking smug. And right next to her was Gilbert, looking handsome as ever. What he had said to her before almost made her think he was earnest, or he liked her somehow, but seeing him next to Josie Pye cemented Anne’s opinion to the contrary. The handsome boy had come to White Sands to watch her and laugh, and Anne started the program feeling absolutely sick.

**Author's Note:**

> I was watching Newsies and I feel like the Katherine/Jack dynamic is also very Anne/Gilbertesque? This story is loosely based on the interaction right before "Watch What Happens," when Jack tells Katherine to "write good". When he leaves, she mocks him privately, but he gives her the inspiration she needs (as Gilbert does later on in the recital), and there's also a bit in the song about hating him while he's still so cute- "Handsome, heroically charismatic, plain-spoken, skirt-chasing cocky little son-of-a-" Which is SO how Anne thinks about Gilbert. I hope you like this! I had fun with it lol


End file.
